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Geometry and Architectural Planning at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey Geometry and Architectural Planning at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey Gil Haklay & Avi Gopher The site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey keeps fascinating archaeologists as it is being exposed. The excavation since 1995 has been accompanied by a lively discussion about the meaning and implications of its remarkable early Neolithic megalithic architecture, unprecedented in its monumentality, complexity and symbolic content. The building history and the chronological relations between the different structures (enclosures), however, remain in many ways a challenge and open to further analysis. The study presented here is an attempt to contribute in this direction by applying a preliminary architectural formal analysis in order to reconstruct aspects of the architectural design processes involved in the construction of the monumental enclosures. This is done under the premise that such investigation would shed light on the chaîne opératoire of the enclosures’ construction and their history, thus enabling a fresh look as well as an evaluation of past suggestions regarding these structures and the people who built them. Indeed, the results of the analysis brought to light an underlying geometric pattern which offers a new understanding of the assemblage of architectural remains indicating that three of the stone-built large enclosures were planned and initially built as a single project. Introduction throughout the Levant and Cyprus, recapitulates the advances of architectural planning (thought, In the archaeological record, architectural planning principles and methods) during this time, as geomet- that includes specifications of architectural spatial ric architectural planning is often detectable while forms prior to construction becomes archaeologically analysing their remains. The site of Göbekli Tepe, visible with the appearance of stone-built shelters in however, stands out when it comes to the volume of the late Epipaleolithic period (Natufian sites) in the construction endeavours undertaken, among other Levant (Haklay & Gopher 2015). Both the planning things, and, as we will show and discuss, the com- and the execution of the plan with accuracy were plexity of the planned and built architectural projects. made possible by conceptualizing basic geometric This study will discuss the building history of ideas and methods such as circle, centre and compass the monumental enclosures in the main area of arm. Subsequently, the early Neolithic period has Göbekli Tepe, as well as the chronological relations seen the emergence of substantial built environments between them, by applying a preliminary architec- in the form of villages and beyond. During the tural formal analysis that reconstructs aspects of the Neolithic period, from its very beginning, large con- architectural design processes involved in the con- struction projects were built, including the Jericho struction of these enclosures. We assume that such tower and other non-domestic, communal/collective analysis would shed light on the chaîne opératoire of structures. The archaeological record of these so the enclosures’ construction (mostly the planning, called ‘special buildings’, found in Neolithic sites laying out the plan on the ground—and see below, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30:2, 343–357 © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2020. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. doi:10.1017/S0959774319000660 Received 19 Mar 2019; Accepted 6 Oct 2019; Revised 6 Aug 2019 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 28 Sep 2021 at 20:02:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774319000660 Gil Haklay & Avi Gopher This paper will focus on the architectural remains excavated in the southeastern part of the site (the main excavation area) under the direction of Klaus Schmidt in the years 1995–2014, on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute and the Museum of Şanlıurfa (O. Dietrich et al. 2014; Peters et al. 2014; Schmidt 2000; 2001; 2002a,b; 2003; 2004; 2006; 2007; 2008; 2010; 2012). The site is located at the cen- tre of the Fertile Crescent, at the ‘heart’ of the Golden Triangle (Aurenche & Kozlowski 2005; Schmidt 2000) and in the Core Area of plant domestication (Abbo & Gopher 2017; Abbo et al. 2010; Gopher et al. 2017; Lev-Yadun et al. 2000). It was suggested by the excavator that early layers of the site were built and used by hunter-gatherers, since no domes- ticated plants or animals have been recovered. The stratigraphy of the site comprises two main layers. The older Layer III assigned to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period is characterized by large curvilinear enclosures, while the younger Layer II assigned to the early and middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) periods features relatively smal- ler, rectangular structures, typically with lime-plaster floors (Schmidt 2002a) and crowded together with shared walls. A third, maybe intermediate layer, marked as ‘uncertain’ on the schematic plan (Fig. 1; O. Dietrich et al. 2014, fig. 2), contains small free- standing structures of irregular shape contours, Figure 1. The main excavation area: schematic plan. defined both by curvilinear and straight wall seg- fi (Modi ed from O. Dietrich et al. 2014.) ments. Based on a geomagnetic survey, it is esti- mated that at least 15 more Layer III curvilinear enclosures are scattered throughout the mound including Figure 8—and initial construction stages) (Schmidt 2003). According to the excavator, the thus enabling a new understanding of the assem- enclosures of Layer III went through a series of back- blage of these architectural remains. We first present filling events, interpreted as an intentional ‘burial’ of the site and the enclosures of the main area of these round monumental enclosures (Schmidt 2000). Göbekli Tepe, then our methodology and the archi- These enclosures are the subject of our analysis here. tectural formal analysis, and finally the results of Four Layer III enclosures (Enclosures A–D) were the analysis. The discussion closing this paper con- uncovered so far in the main excavation area, each cerns questions of architectural planning and the sig- featuring a number of often decorated monolithic nificance of our results vis-à-vis earlier interpretations T-shaped stone pillars (3–4m high)embeddedinto of the architectural ensemble of the main area at stepped-back peripheral walls and set around a pair Göbekli Tepe. of central larger stone pillars (up to 5.5 m high). The lower part of the peripheral walls (the ‘bench’) typic- Göbekli Tepe ally interconnects the inner edges of the T-shaped pillars. In their final form, structures B, C and D The Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe is were curvilinear enclosures (10–30 m in diameter), pos- located at the summit of a limestone mountain sibly partially subterranean and roofed (L. Dietrich ridge in the Şanlıurfa Province, southeast Turkey. It et al. 2019 and references therein), each defined by is a 15 m high artificial mound covering an area of one or more circumventing peripheral walls (which about 9 ha. Excavations carried out in different may also represent different construction episodes). areas of the site yielded megalithic architecture Enclosure A (which based on radiocarbon dating is 1 dated to the twelfth and eleventh millennia cal. BP assumed to be the most recent one) is characterized (tenth and ninth millennia cal. BC: Schmidt 2010). by elongated walls. It has been suggested that 344 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 28 Sep 2021 at 20:02:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774319000660 Geometry and Architectural Planning at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey Enclosure A may represent a transitional phase from peripheral wall (about 9 m in diameter) surrounding round to rectangular architecture (O. Dietrich 2017a; the two central pillars includes nine T-shaped pillars O. Dietrich et al. 2013). so far. The top of walls exposed north and south of One of the most outstanding characteristics of the peripheral wall may suggest a second concentric the site is the richness in imagery items (especially) wall (about 14 m in diameter), so far without pillars. associated with the megalithic architecture. Many of The enclosure seems to have had a lime-plastered the architectural elements including pillars, pillar floor, which was exposed mainly between the two bases, port-holes and gates bear representations in central pillars. By the eastern central pillar, a stone relief, depicting a wide range of wild animals. slab with a shallow channel leading to a carved Mostly, the monolithic T-shaped pillars bear represen- bowl embedded in the floor hints, according to the tations in bas-relief, but high-relief representations excavator, that a ritual may have taken place in the and smaller 3D sculptures integrated in the walls space between the twin pillars (O. Dietrich et al. have been found as well (Schmidt 2006; 2007; 2008; 2012a; Schmidt 2001), both bearing
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